When She Woke

I was expecting a dark YA classic lit adaptation as a bit of a brain break after a heavy read, but this was not really a young adult book, and unexpectedly shared some themes around religion and morality with my previous book. Hillary Jordan riffs on The Scarlet Letter, bringing it forward in time and evoking Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for good measure. Hannah Payne lives in a near-future United States, in a world that has been changed profoundly by a mutated STD that caused a fertility crisis, a nuclear attack on Los Angeles, and a new way to deal with crime: an injection that literally changes a person's skin color for the duration of their sentence, with different shades correlating to different crimes. Hannah, born and raised in a conservative evangelical household in Texas, is a Red, reserved for crimes of violence. She's had an abortion, and refused to name both her doctor and the man who would have been the father of her child...who just so happens to be a mega-church preacher and newly appointed federal official, the pastor Aiden Dale. Once she's released from her brief prison sentence (in which she, like her fellow prisoners, is broadcast live to reality TV), she finds herself facing choices she never could have imagined before her ill-fated love affair. I've always had a soft spot for The Scarlet Letter, and I enjoyed the little callbacks to it, like Hannah's skill as a seamstress and a nod to Hester Prynne's daughter Pearl. There's a development near the end that felt a little forced, and an ending that lacked the satisfaction of the one that Nathaniel Hawthorne devised. There's also a lot of Hannah reckoning with her faith particularly and belief generally, contemplating the existence of a higher power in a world of profound injustice. It was more philosophically inclined than I'd expected. It was perfectly okay and I suspect I will hardly remember it six months from now.

I wanted so badly to LOVE this book. I wanted it to take up residence on my “favorites” shelf. The subject matter of this book, I just knew, as soon as I saw it, this was right up my alley. I promptly put it on my wish list over at barnes and noble, high priority, even. When I saw that the nookbook had one day dropped in price to $3.99 from $14+, I got that tingly feeling that only getting a much-wanted book at a bargain price can give.

The story started okay, explaining who the character was, her predicament and the hows and whys of how she got there. After that, the story pretty much dropped off and it just felt like it was all over the place and NOTHING was resolved. What happened to her sister and Cole? What happened to the people that ran the home she spent those six weeks at? There was mention that the Novembrists might do something to them, but nothing ever happened. Her situation with Aidan, I felt there was no resolution there either. I was sorely disappointed with the story and felt like the author just hurried up and finished. It's almost as if Hillary Jordan got tired of writing and said “screw it, I'm done, let's wrap it up and put a bow on it.” I give the book three stars because the idea behind the book is a good one and I did enjoy reading about that. This is just another one of those books that I feel the author could've done so much more with.

Pros: intense character development, fascinating - if terrifying - world, positive message at the end, thought provoking

Cons: very dark tone, some disturbing scenes (religious / near violent)

Hannah Payne has been sentenced to 16 years as a Chrome. Her skin has been turned a rich, vibrant red in order to denote her crime of murder, for aborting her child. The scourge that killed many and made women infertile has been cured and the Sanctity Of Life laws mark women like Hannah as outcasts. Her fundamentalist Christian upbringing did not prepare her for forbidden love with a married man or the horrors she would face as a Red. When She Woke is Hannah's story of endurance, enlightenment and ultimately self-empowerment.

As with many dystopian novels, When She Woke is terrifying because in may ways it's easy to see this future coming about. In the book Roe v. Wade is overturned in order to help increase the population, an act some parties in the US are already trying to do, removing women's rights to control their own bodies and their bodies' reproduction. The idea of tracking released criminals is also one close to being realized, with the jump to making such a database open to the public only a small step further.

While based on Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is much darker. While she faces the reproach and repudiation of Christians, she also faces the lechery of those who would take advantage of the downtrodden, and a fundamentalist group the equivalent of the KKK, that targets and kills Chromes.

The book was therefore unsettling on a number of levels. It reads as though it will have an unpleasant and depressing ending, yet at some point Hannah stops letting others decide her path and takes control of her own life. It's amazing seeing her go from a cowed if outspoken Christian girl to a fully liberated woman who questions the truth and motivations of others. One who knows the consequences of her actions and is willing to face them instead of trying to please others and their notions of repentance. Her character changes so completely - yet so honestly - as the book progresses that when you reach the end it's hard to remember who she was at the beginning of the book.

Not for the faint of heart, this is a good thought-provoking read about personal rights, the justice system and being your own person.